Having stated that the commodity is the basic unit of the wealth of capitalist society (Capital, Volume I, chapter 1), Marx establishes that every commodity ha's both a use-value and an exchange-value. He begins the discussion of Capital by defining use-value as a substance which satisfies human needs. But rather than being merely a natural substance, use-value acquires a series of social specifications as the analysis of Volume I proceeds. What are these specifications; and what role do they play in the analysis of (a) the commodity, money and their circulation; (b) capital; (c) capitalist production? It is with these issues that this note is concerned.

The use-value of a commodity is its utility or usefulness in satisfying human needs. A commodity, such as corn, brandy or a coat, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use-value, something useful. Introducing the notion of Value, Marx says that a use-value, or useful article, has value because human labour in the abstract has been embodied in it. "Moreover, a thing can be useful, and the product of human labour, without being a commodity. Whoever directly satisfies his wants with the produce of his own labour, creates index, use-values, but not commodities. In order to produce the latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values.11 However, Marx makes clear that producing use-values for some one else is not enough. For that matter, even the medieval peasant used to produce for others. But that did not make the corn he produced a commodity. To become a commodity, a product must be transferred to another, for whom it will have use-value, by means of exchange* (i,48). In capitalist society, use-values serve as the material depositories of exchange value. Thus use-values enter into the act of exchange; a use-value has exchange when it can be exchanged for definite quantities of use-value. Use values constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth.

* School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi.